So the guys at Bethesda let it slip a few months ago that Elder Scrolls V was in the works for 2010, and a friend said he read a possible release in 2009... I'm looking for the article, but I'm friggin' STOKED about a new Elder Scrolls game coming out in the next 12-18 months!!!

I think they can learn a lot with the successes and failures of their previous landmark releases like Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 and make ESV an absolute KICK ASS game!

There is a staff of familiar summoning you could use so you don't have to use a skill point. Summoned a Wolf for me.

btw you can enchant gloves and helmets with the Archery damage bonus ... 40% damage increase each if you use a grand soul.

That's 100% damage increase from perks
80% damage increase from enchant (i don't know if you can do it on jewelry)
3x damage with sneak hit perk
30% increase damage chance for critiacal hit with perk(s)

very nice

I just made me a pretty nice Ebony bow with dual enchants

35 base damage
17 fire damage (double if they are on fire)
5 second soul capture
25 frost damage to health and stamina

40% damage increase from glove/helm enchant

thinking about taking archery perk for another 100%

full set of double enchanted Ebony armor btw. w00t!!

How did you get 3 enchants on your bow?

I'm going to make my fully maxed Daedric set today, just need 3 more Daedra hearts. Also, if you're going for the absolute maxed out items, make sure to drink the blacksmithing and enchanting potions (use the strongest ones) before you make and enchant your things.

And yeah, absorb magicka works just like absorb health - you steal theirs when you hit them.

Also, to all you heavy armor wearing blacksmiths, save your skill point and don't invest into Dragon Armor. Daedric is better all around even though it's a peg lower.

As far as Dragon attacks, I'm pretty sure they're all elemental and physical.

__________________
ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

I'm going to make my fully maxed Daedric set today, just need 3 more Daedra hearts. Also, if you're going for the absolute maxed out items, make sure to drink the blacksmithing and enchanting potions (use the strongest ones) before you make and enchant your things.

And yeah, absorb magicka works just like absorb health - you steal theirs when you hit them.

Also, to all you heavy armor wearing blacksmiths, save your skill point and don't invest into Dragon Armor. Daedric is better all around even though it's a peg lower.

As far as Dragon attacks, I'm pretty sure they're all elemental and physical.

I'll be damned you're right. Only benefit, it seems, is dragon plate armor is about 10 pounds lighter for the set. Not a biggie if you use the heavy armor perk to remove weight of heavy armor.

Dragon scale armor (light), however, is the best light armor you can get.

Some pacifists are nice people who wouldn’t harm an elf. Others would cast a spell on a town full of people and have the crowd beat the elf to a pulp.

The second kind of pacifist isn’t really a pacifist, of course. She’s a manipulative monster who keeps her hands clean. That’s who gamer Ian Jones is playing as he reached level 35 of the mammoth role-playing game Skyrim without recording a single killing blow.

He even makes dragons dead, without laying a sword or spell on them.

“My primary method of tackling dragons is to try and kite them to a nearby town or fort full of friendly [non-player characters] (or on one occasion two Giants) which I buff with spells like Courage and heal them while they do the work for me,” Jones told me over e-mail. “It takes a while and sometimes the NPCs die too fast; but for about half of the dragons I encounter I can take them down with this method.

Jones is playing his third character in Skyrim, his first as a non-killer. “I see my character as a type of mentalist or minstrel: inspiring strife or discord to manipulate the odds in her favour while not actual being the one with blood on her hands.” She is a very different kind of non-killer than Felix the Monk, the gentle pacifist we’ve covered here on Kotaku previously. That pacifist was nice. That pacifist was also Level 9 in Skyrim. Jones says he’s ranked his heroine to Level 35, reaching the Alduin’s Wall part of the main quest and otherwise just screwing around in the massive game.

“I imagine I could likely get up to the final face-off with Alduin before I hit my wall and am unable to go any further without directly killing him,” Jones told me. “When it comes to side quests I’ve dipped my fingers in just about every quest I’ve come across. I’ve gotten up to the Labyrinthian quest in the Winterhold College questline — I’m still theorycrafting how to go about getting past the Dragon Priest at the end of that one.”

Jones’ playing style seems unpleasant. He advises those who get frustrated easily to avoid copying him. “There have been several times where I’ve had to reload entire dungeons, because I couldn’t get past a certain area without direct confrontation and losing my pacifist goal.”

It may be frustrating to play as a master-manipulator, but it’s also downright clever. Consider how Jones handled getting into the murderous Dark Brotherhood… without murdering anyone himself: “Well, the first Dark Brotherhood quest involves killing a cruel orphanage headmaster — luckily enough for me there is also another adult present in the orphanage. I simply used Frenzy on the other nursery maid and let her kill Grelod for me. After this quest is a quest that requires you to murder a victim in front of the guild master Astrid. I frenzied Astrid into killing the victims for me, which completed the quest. Oddly enough neither of these tactics counted as a kill in my statistics which allowed me to technically still be a pacifist.”

And here’s how he got through the game’s first main quest, one that pits the player one-on-one against a single enemy. What does a character who makes others do the killing for him or her do with a situation like that? Jones: “My biggest challenges are one-on-one faceoffs. For example: The Draugr at the end of Bleak Falls Barrow (the first real quest dungeon in the game) where you must kill him to get a Dragonstone for the main questline. I had to kite him all of the way back to a hallway with a swinging axe trap and run him through it about 10 times before he died and I was able to loot the quest item off of him. There have been other scenarios like that where I’m forced to use other tools available to me in order to work with my 0 kills goal.”

Jones calls this playing style “contrived.” It’s also amazing. Poor dragons, they thought they had an easy mark.

I'm going to make my fully maxed Daedric set today, just need 3 more Daedra hearts. Also, if you're going for the absolute maxed out items, make sure to drink the blacksmithing and enchanting potions (use the strongest ones) before you make and enchant your things.

And yeah, absorb magicka works just like absorb health - you steal theirs when you hit them.

Also, to all you heavy armor wearing blacksmiths, save your skill point and don't invest into Dragon Armor. Daedric is better all around even though it's a peg lower.

As far as Dragon attacks, I'm pretty sure they're all elemental and physical.

Wow, I want to get that Fiery Soul Capture. Could care less about the spell cost, magicka recovery spells.

I was thinking doing Health Absorb + Stamina Absorb on one axe and Soul Capture + Fire on the other axe, but if I can squeeze in a third enchant on the 2nd axe, holy shit that would be awesome. That would mean I would have 5 effects going with every swing... JIMP

My bow would have Magicka Absorb and Shock Damage for those pesky casters.

__________________
ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

Wow, I want to get that Fiery Soul Capture. Could care less about the spell cost, magicka recovery spells.

I was thinking doing Health Absorb + Stamina Absorb on one axe and Soul Capture + Fire on the other axe, but if I can squeeze in a third enchant on the 2nd axe, holy shit that would be awesome. That would mean I would have 5 effects going with every swing... JIMP

My bow would have Magicka Absorb and Shock Damage for those pesky casters.

I think i got it off a sword

Yea, Magicka absorb for casters and Frost damage for melee attacks because of the added stamina damage. My dual cast Ice Storm will take most melee attackers down even if it doesn't kill them because they don't have enough stamina to run or attack.

I am currently up to level 29 with my Breton. I finally got the damn Black Star so it's fun enchanting time for me. I just finished up the Staff of Magnus quest so I have the Archmage Robes (big boost to magicka and magicka regen rate) and also just completed the Gauldur's Amulet sidequest so that bad boy gives me a 30 boost to health, magicka and stamina. I am slowly working my way up to the real high levels of smithing and enchanting so I can start getting some pimped out armor set up.

I am currently up to level 29 with my Breton. I finally got the damn Black Star so it's fun enchanting time for me. I just finished up the Staff of Magnus quest so I have the Archmage Robes (big boost to magicka and magicka regen rate) and also just completed the Gauldur's Amulet sidequest so that bad boy gives me a 30 boost to health, magicka and stamina. I am slowly working my way up to the real high levels of smithing and enchanting so I can start getting some pimped out armor set up.

Yeah, I wish you could wear more jewlery than just two pieces. I'm going to keep Gauldur's I think because there are no 2 enchants that would make for a better amulet as far as I know. On the ring, I'm definitely doing +one handed damage, but haven't decided on the 2nd enchant yet.

__________________
ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

Yea, Magicka absorb for casters and Frost damage for melee attacks because of the added stamina damage. My dual cast Ice Storm will take most melee attackers down even if it doesn't kill them because they don't have enough stamina to run or attack.

Well, I'm not going to worry about Frost damage because I'm already draining their stamina and adding it to mine. Same thing with health. On my bow, it's going to do drain their magicka and add to mine and the shock will drain it further. Stamina is inconsequential to casters so I'm not going to worry about it.

__________________
ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

Well, I'm not going to worry about Frost damage because I'm already draining their stamina and adding it to mine. Same thing with health. On my bow, it's going to do drain their magicka and add to mine and the shock will drain it further. Stamina is inconsequential to casters so I'm not going to worry about it.